The Fusion of Fire- Part II
by HaVIC
Summary: The fleet from Lapios initiate's it's attack on the Yeerk fleet around Earth, but all is not what it seems. Please R/R, thanks.


The Fusion of Fire- Part 2  
  
Chapter 5  
  
As told by the F/y 50 pilot, Quinton "Splicer" Wheeler of Io  
  
Theta 2, Elation  
  
"Roger that, lead, TDS-1 Vampire had zeroed out and should be on their way to beat the crap out of the land forces. You know who will do the same in the air. We are awaiting orders, sir," I said to Theta Lead. All the Thetas were known for their incredible anxiety for staying around and doing nothing, we are renowned for the incredible urge to attack, and fast. Since we were paired with the Alphas, the only other group that shared our collective consciousness bound to the ideology of blood, the operation should last less than a half hour. Secure the planet, easy, destroy the yeerk fleet, even easier.  
  
What was also a plus to the Thetas was that the President, Pete Quin, was taking in as Alpha lead and bumping every one else down the list to six. That's right. Six. Why is this good, you say? Well, one of my close friends, if you get what I mean, Jennifer Dove is in a position at the war council. Quin, according to the Condor, that's what the call him, is a very aggressive leader who takes commands from no one and in times of battle, he is the one you want on your side. From what the Condor says, he doesn't fight as much as you want him to, but he can tell you exactly what to do to save your skins. A big plus for the ruthless Thetas.  
  
"Confirmed, Theta 2. Copy my coordinates. Bearing one-nine-five at 46 degrees. Initiate sub-lightspeed engines on my mark," Theta lead said. A program opened up on my internal view screen showing number 10 slowly ticking down by one. "Program your craft to launch when one is reached."  
  
I opened up my display holo and quickly typed in the passage for the instructions that lead had given me and waited until 10 turned to one. It slowly changed into 9, then 8, then 7, then 6, and soon, the luminescent 3D number reached 1.   
  
ZZZZOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!!!!! Those of you who are the lazy buggers that aren't in the military, sub-lightspeed engines installed on the F/y-50's can reach an astonishing mach 12, which is dangerously close to lightspeed. In a limited sense, time was slowing quickly behind me as the anti-acceleration mechanisms started failing and my back was thrust back against the seat of the cockpit. My face became distorted as the temporal g-forces worked their odd physical magic on my mouth. In the non-militant sense, a person would want to scream their head literally off, and with some temporal fluxes, that is entirely possible, but for a Theta, of course I didn't scream! I am a Theta! The scream is afraid of me, in a sense.  
  
You see, the only possible way to get from Mars to Earth in efficient time and energy is by a human, and strictly human sub-light burn. You can fly conventionally between the two planets, otherwise it would take a month, and you can't take Z-space because of the small distance. An alternative to this would be the human sub-light burn OR a double Z-space jump in which a ship jumps out of the system at lets say Mars and then performs another to Earth. The latter is far less efficient due to the enormous amount of time it takes, almost more than conventional travel, so we sub-light the journey.  
  
One of the problems, however, with this plays into the great thinker, Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. To deal with the trans-temporal distortions we encountered, we relied on the help of MAP VI. MAP VI was a probe launched around, 2140ish to look father literally back in time towards the stars using the latest of enhanced sensory perception. It mapped red-shifts, galaxy's ages, all good sciencey stuff, but the single greatest discovery it uncovered was the concept of the singularity energy. When mapping black holes, it's sensors started to pick up it's particularly odd energy field, but when taking temporal relays with it, the time seemed to have stopped. Completely. This is because of reasons only the most educated scientists know, but from what I can gather, the singular quark/anti-quark meson X-dimensional particles are split, creating the energy of 5,000 suns exploding at once. The enormous outburst of energy somehow creates a static time flow, and when used in controlled doses, can render Einstein's relativity useless.  
  
To control the massive production of energy, we instead split anti-molecule and molecule meson substructures to mimic the effect to a lesser effect. It worked astoundingly well, and the static time effect did not wear off. We could not possibly start to imagine how powerful the quark/anti-quark splitting could be. Taking full advantage of the effect, the engineers installed nodes along the hull of our F/y's that periodically produced the time-statis when relativity got in the way during sub-light, and also helping the engines along when they were needy on fuel.  
  
"Alpha and Theta squadron, this is Alpha Lead, disengage sub-light on my mark," Alpha lead, also know as the president of the human forces, said through the bio-mic, "3...2...1...NOOWW!!"  
  
I reached for the button to disengage the engines the instant he said 1. Just like all the Thetas would. The engines immediately cut off, bringing time to it's normal flow and slowing the massive blur of white and black around me. The anti-relativity nodes died out quickly, and after only 10 minutes, we had traversed the distance between Mars and Earth along with the rest of the fleet. The view of Earth quickly came into view, and I was horrified at what force we had to attack. Even being a Theta, it was daunting.  
  
Nearly 35, sleek, blade-shaped objects hovered around the orbit of Earth. 20 massive pool-ships lingered above the previously barren world, ready to feed the masses and provide enormous amounts of support. And the bug-fighters. Hundreds. Maybe even a thousand, if I was counting correctly. Most of them, according to my sensors, were inside the fighter bays of the fleet ships, but if they came out, havoc would reign supreme.   
  
And we were going to stop that any way we could.  
  
"Thetas, fire at will on all targets. We have orders from the Elation to attack the designated blade ships 5,6,7,8 and 9. Do all you can to destroy them before the fighters launch, and, well, knowing us that won't be much of a problem. Squadrons Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Elipson, Lambda, Delta and Omega will be joining us in the fight," Theta lead said, and then continued with the aftermark," and knowing Delta, we would be better off without them."  
  
"Hear, hear!" Theta 4 agreed.   
  
"Hear, hear!" All the rest, including myself, replied.  
  
"All right, boys, let's show him who is boss, the Theta way. Nukes are set and ready to go. Remember what happened last time with the senate's temporary disbandment of Theta squadron, so attack areas WITHOUT any other fighters covering them. This fight is going fusion, boys," Theta cheered. Nuclear fusion projectiles were banded for 3 centuries before the Scythes, but with the colony stages of human existence, the senate passed a law that said that nuclear weapons were allowed only if they were being loaded and shot over a distance of 400 light-years away from Lapios. And they were, in this case.  
  
I juiced up my chaingun and loaded up the nukes on secondary weapons control before breaking formation and swarming in on blade ship 7's main bridge where the majority of the fighter bays were located. If I could Nuke the bays and with a couple more missiles, split the bridge, then I would single handily destroy the ship. I wonder how that would appear on my kills list? Hehehe......  
  
I looked at my sensors, keeping an eye out for any enemy fighters that could surprise me. Nope. None coming. It was obvious that we had a slight tactical advantage in the surprise approach. Even the escort bug fighters and the sentries had not taken any interest, and if they didn't soon, their ships were doomed to inexistence.   
  
"Theta 3, cover my wing. I'm nuking the bridge," I relayed to the Theta 3 pilot, Xavier "Enigma" Martinez. The only one in the Theta's that I could trust with my life.  
  
"Roger, 2. Coming up on formation," he said.  
  
A sleek, deadly F/y-50 came swooping down behind me, coming into formation to protect my flank. Not that it really was necessary at this point, but he could help me beat the crap out of the yeerks on the main bridge of the bladeship with the nukes. I increased my throttle to 90 percent, ever mindful of anything that might appear on the HUD. No targets except the bladeship. Yet.  
  
"Going for the main hatch too?" Enigma asked.  
  
"Negative. I'm figuring that if we breach the main bridge, that will be enough to send the ship into a permanent recoil."  
  
There was a slight pause. "Calculations are perfectly valid. Engage."  
  
We swooped down towards the area of the orbit in which blade ship 7 lay. I nervously checked the HUD once more, hoping that the damned device would show a bug fighter for me to kill. One. YES! Two, three, 5. A sentry squadron was being sent to investigate our little raiding party. Sentries, however weak they may be, can do massive damage if you get too cocky. Which the Thetas almost always did.   
  
"Boogies, bearing nine-one-four," I relayed to Enigma.  
  
"Got it, Splicer, primary chain, secondary nuke."  
  
"One step ahead of you, Enigma. Decrease throttle and acquire targets."  
  
"Roger that, 2."  
  
I slowed my engines to a very slow speed of approximately 20 miles per hour to create a decent firing platform for my heavy chaingun cannons. Enigma formed up alongside of me to create a doubling effect, increasing the overall efficiency in the physiological damage dealt. Which was considered quite an important factor in war. We fired.  
  
TSEWSEWSEWSEWSEWSEWSEWSEWSEW! BOOOOMMM!! Before any of the sentries had any time to react, two of their fellow comrades had evaporated in the photon acceleration of our chainguns into nothingness. The other sentries were quickly and violently informed of our presence by weak collateral damage, and a few moments after the explosion, the 3 other sentry bug-fighters turned about 50 degrees and started dashing straight towards us. We obviously had the advantage of superior weapons, range, armor and maneuverability, but the one thing I know about fighting yeerks is be ready for almost everything they can throw at you, because in time, they will most definitely do so.   
  
Sharing almost a collective cerebral cortex, we started firing again at the exact same time at different targets to ensure the greatest possible damage.   
  
TSESEWSEWSEWSEWSEWSEWSEWSEWSEWSEWSEW!!! BOOOOOMMM!! Instantly, the two targets we had acquired vaporized, spreading deadly collateral damage towards their only remaining comrade. Since the bug fighter had not used the time in which we had fired to juice up their shields, the bombarding ship parts crashed through the cockpit, sending the craft careening towards us with incredible speed.  
  
"Look out 2," Enigma warned.  
  
I increased my throttle as high as it would go and evaded the rouge space chunk just in time before it exploded in a fiery mass behind me. The fire singed my craft just before my shields were raised, and my engines faltered, knocking me into an uncontrollable roll. For a bit, anyway. Before the anti-g mechanisms buckled under the centrifuge, I managed to turn the F/y-50 back on track, and the auto-repair systems got straight to work on repairing the singed part of the craft.   
  
"Phew, close one there," I breathed into the bio-mic.  
  
"You owe me one, Splicer. Any damage?"  
  
"Minimal. And thank god of that. LOOK!" I said, staring in disbelieve at the incredible scene below me. No way. No way.  
  
Chapter 6  
  
As told by the Elite SS Operative, John "Condor" Leeroy  
  
"Whoa, I could not have expected this," I said, moving in the new sense that the 4th dimension offered. It was odd. It wasn't similar to any of the movements that the 3rd dimension offered. Amazon, Jaguar and I could move, shall we call it, through? The process of going into four 3D worlds at once, but all worlds contain the same objects and time. Almost, like going into other rooms, but every room contains the same thing. In order to traverse these four, 3D worlds with ease, we had to have another biological addition, a biological addition in words I can't describe. But, being in the 3rd dimension, only one down from the fourth, we could travel in-between the worlds. The reason why we did it was similar to breathing; we couldn't survive without it. Odd. Very odd.  
  
Oh, and all those who have somehow acquired this document that live in the 21st and 20th centuries, Albert Einstein's theory that time was the 4th dimension is completely false. It's more like, shall we say, landscape jumping. Or moving "through." Or anything like that. Very weird.  
  
"Biological addition needed. A sac of some sort. Like Lungs. External though. Must. Have," Amazon said, jumping through the worlds with difficulty.  
  
"Think of it. As having. Asthma. In an odd. Sense," Jaguar moaned.  
  
"We could build a. Transdimensional portal and genetically. Splice a native humanoid's. Ability to live easily in. This environment. Into our DNA code. We could then activate the. Splicing only through the. Portal, and de-activate it going. Back," Amazon theorized.  
  
"Interesting theory. Amazon," I said with great difficulty, jumping again into one of the worlds.  
  
"Coming up on. Earth. Portal disengaged," Jaguar said. Without warning, the 4-world dimension collapsed into one, somehow imprinting the feeling of the release of burden. Finally, I could walk in the way I was meant to walk, but I felt somewhat, shall we say, prohibited. An odd feeling.   
  
I looked up from the floor in which I was staring from. The standard perception monitor, better known as window, showed a long stretch of barren wasteland that seemed to stretch on for miles. Brown, and maybe a bit of green. Bits and pieces of metal lay strewn across the landscape. A lone skeleton is left to rot in the forever bog. Think of the nuclear apocalypse. That was the scene in which I saw through the SPM.   
  
I looked at the gas readings. Surprisingly normal. 67% Nitrogen, 30% Oxygen. Almost identical to that of the Earth before the yeerks and the Scythes in both timelines. Turning to Amazon, I asked, "Judging from your instincts, what is the probability that we will live?" It was somewhat of a ceremonial saying, when a person of superior rank is asking for assistance.  
  
She smiled. Although I was of superior rank, it was she who had the superior intellect. "With the likes of you? Zero-100."  
  
"I hate you. Right. Anyway, it looks good enough, anyway. Shall we?"  
  
"Lead the way, sir," Jaguar said with a smile.  
  
"Not this again," I sighed. "Well, get your chainguns and your picket grenades (high-explosive projectiles) and prepare for the worst. Computer, open main hatch."  
  
"Voice identification authorized. Hatch opening," the mechanical voice of the computer rang. A low hiss was produced from the pressure's attempt at equilibrium. Cautiously, I moved forward, having Amazon and Jaguar flank me as we set off to locate the resistance. Like that was going to be easy. Oh well.  
  
*******************************  
  
As told by the Resistence Chairman, Jake [ERROR: Data not found]  
  
"Ugh, quoi est cet ordinateur si difficile traviller?" Pete mumbled.  
  
"Come again?" Tobias asked.  
  
"Nevermind. Trying to use French more often. One of the only other dialects that is around other that English that is becoming extinct."  
  
"Whatever, just don't practice it around here. Gives me a headache."  
  
"Yessir."  
  
"Guys, look here!" Marco cried for some reason, staring at the screens in front of him. It was several days after we spotted the massive fleet, and it had been several days of boredom, staring blankly at the screens. It was just, shall we say, hovering there, doing nothing. Boring. Dumb. Not worth a commanders time.  
  
"What is it?" I demanded.  
  
"Jeez, Jake, take it easy. A ship just materialized 150 meters west of camp. There was abosolutley no warning, not even a visual from the lookouts."  
  
"Huh? Lemme see that," I said, while leening over to the viewing screen. What the hell was that? All of a sudden, a fighter-like ship lands within a quarter mile of the base without any warning. The ship was almost shaped like a bullet, which did not seem like anything I had ever seen. There. On the ground. About 750 feet away from here. Not good.  
  
"Contact it," Rachel said.  
  
"Are you crazy? We don't know-" Marco protested.  
  
"Yes, I am crazy. It probably is not hostile because of it's number, 1. And you can't see any true laser turrets anywhere on it," Rachel cut Marco off.   
  
I thought about what Rachel had just said. It was a good point, to some extent, but knowing how bold and crazy Rachel had become during the takeover, it was amazing that she could think on such a logical scale.   
  
"Good point. What do you suggest to do about it?" I asked.  
  
She smiled and looked at me in a funny way. "You know all too well, cousin."  
  
Marco sighed. "Great. Just great. Xena's at it yet again."  
  
"Shut up. And yes. Go full force and attack it. Whatever it is. Battle morphs and shred it to pieces if it's hostile. Which it isn't, but who cares."  
  
"Rachel, we have to be a bit more diplomatic than storming around whatever ship that is and forcing it to surrender. According to your 'theory'," Cassie explained, somewhat exaggerating the word theory, "this would not be the best course of action. More like a simple greeting party."  
  
I agree with Cassie. Whoever built that ship that evaded every yeerk sensor and scan must be willing to fight them, and they could be a valuable asset in battle with their 'superior', Ax almost chocked on the last word, but then continued to say, technology.  
  
"Greg, Pete? Anything to add?" I asked.  
  
"No, sir."  
  
"You sure? Anything that comes to mind?"  
  
"We said, no sir."  
  
"Contestants, breaking up the conversation yet once more and presenting the resistence with yet another bizzare twist of fate, Tobias Fangor brings to you the inhabitants of the mysterious craft. Johnny, tell them who they are," Marco said in his annoying game show host voice staring at the screens. What the hell?   
  
"What are they?" Tobias asked.  
  
"Thank you, Bob. Coming out of the main bridge is a lovely, female human attired in a skin-tight jumpsuit carrying what seems to be a 2-foot long rifle and several grenades in her pocket who is flanked by a tall, HOLY SHIT!!!!!!!!" Marco explained, ending in a swearing.  
  
"What?!" I demanded, running over yet again to the view screens in the command tent. He stood open mouthed looking at 3 figureswalking out of the craft. They were humans. But that was definitly not what sparked Marco to say that. Who the humans were, well, hold on a second...  
  
"CONDOR! You little-" Rachel hissed for reasons unknown.  
  
"What the heck?! The Condor? THE Condor with the Amazon and, what, it looks like Incinerator? Right, now I'm confused. WHAT THE HELL?" Tobias fell apart.  
  
"God, Condor, here? This, wait, that means that the fleet is-" I said.  
  
"Human, and is going to retake Earth. We hope."  
  
"AMAZON! INCINERATOR!" Rachel yelled again.  
  
"Stop doing that, and crap!" Marco swore angrily.  
  
In the midst of this confusion stood the clueless Greg and Peter, dumbfounded in what we were yelling at. I only noticed them after they asked me the quesion about 4 times before Cassie finally answered. "Um, what are you doing, officers?" Pete asked casually as if we hadn't been yelling.  
  
"It's a long story, and one with many unpleasent details, but we'll tell it to you anyway," Cassie said bringing them to our attention. We will? Great, another long story to tell.   
  
"Well, it was about 7 years back or so when the Ax-man and I were captured in a rather dareing attempt to destroy one of the first preliminary surface pools," I began. "We almost gave up hope when a creature that could be compared to god named the Ellimist freed us under the condition of balancing out the timeline of the future because of another yeerk takeover. To make a long and needless to say exiting story short, we met up with 6, high-ranking military operatives and attempted to stop the takeover. If it had been that easy, though, then it wouldn't be much of a story.  
  
"Somehow, the yeerks got their hands on what they called a quantum degeneration accelerator device. In English this means that it's a time travel ray, and the yeerks somehow managed to throw us back into the past, from gangster-filled Chigaco in the 1920's, to the swamps of Joiren that was a future battle scene in that timeline and to several other exiting time periods. This too was not enough for the yeerks.  
  
"Somehow yet again, the yeerks managed to alternate the last "level" in the D1 Effect, as it was called, to have every action done in that period actually effect the true time in the future. In a ferocious battle we emerged victorious from the 'D2 Effect' and returned to the officials' home time to find that the yeerks on the colony planet had been destroyed. We said goodbye and then left back home to find ourselves somehow in a world where yeerks have ruled and taken over. We have never to this date figured out how to get back to the real Earth, and stayed here in secret with unusually higher technological strengths than that we were used to, and then started recruiting members. You two were the first, and the rest is history," I finished, drawing in a nice large breath and releasing it.  
  
"So, Condor, Amazon and Incinerator are three of the six operatives, right?" Greg asked.  
  
"Yes they are. Well, that's their codenames anyway. The other operatives were named Mon Capitain, Buttons and Jaguar. All were incrediblby resourceful and powerfull. Condor once destroyed an army of 900 killer robots instantly. That's why we need them to take back Earth or return to our undisturbed timeline. Both preferably."  
  
There was a pause before anyone did anything. "Alright, Jake my man, now that storytime is over, let's see what we can do with our friends the Ruin of the Reign. Onward!" Marco joked.  
  
Chapter 7  
  
As told by the F/y 50 pilot, Quinton "Splicer" Wheeler of Io  
  
Theta 2, Elation  
  
Crap. Even me, the greatest Theta pilot minus 1, was completly daunted by the sight to the starboard side of my F/y 50. No, it couldn't be possible. Not to me. I had a family. A wife and kids back at Lapios.  
  
Screw that. I'd kick their yeerk ass.  
  
Bearing 40 degrees from my current course there lay a vast open space between blade ships 7 and 8. As Enigma and I were fighting off sentry ships, a vast fleetof bug fighters had seemd to have been arranged. Why they were so many in one certain area than all over the orbit of Earth is unknown, but the point was that 65 fighters were massing little over a click away. Jeez. How the hell could even a Theta destroy that force with standerd equipment? Wait a second, maybe we could...  
  
"Status, 3," I ordered Enigma on my wing.   
  
"Good to go. Shields at 100%, prime is chain, second is nuke. Awaiting orders, sir," Enigman half-joked, but it was surprisingly out of context for a Theta.  
  
"Kill quantum engines, bring up energy. Re-route all energy to the Nukes. You know what to do from there. Flank from the left, I'll go right. This is when Theta squadron shall triumph above all," I ordered, adding the inspirational sidenote at the end. It was going to get messy in there.  
  
"Roger that. Breaking formation," Enigma relayed. I turned my head to view out the side of my transparasteel cockpit, seeing the sleek F/y 50 of my freind swoop away to the left of our route. Following my intructions, I killed the quantum power and re-routed the photon power to my nukes while relying on my backup fission batteries to do the job of propelling my craft a sufficient speed. To tell you the truth, I think that the atmospheric hypersonic fission engines are perfectly suited for dogfighting, although our superiors insist that the energy-draining, inefficient quantum batteries should be used. Oh well. Life sucks.  
  
I broke to the right rather hastily, curseing at myself loudly because of the stealth-breaking blunder. Humans have always liked to attack secretly, and most of our craft are created to be stealth fighters. A hastily done maneuver usually shows up nice and big on motion sensors, and that was not what I wanted.  
  
Fourtunatly for me, surprise was evidently one of my few assets still after my break right. Phew. I continued along my course, slowly adjusting the tilt of my nose to create a better stealth effect in mimicing the tilt of a rouge asteroid. This tactic was a widely used one among veteran pilots, and sometimes enemy destroyers have relayed messages (that we intercepted) claiming that they were in the path of 12 rouge asteroids that appeared simultaneously around the ship. Very useful for primitive sensors usually installed on shuttles and (yes) fighters.  
  
TARGET AQUIRED. DISTANCE TO TARGET IS .6342 CLICKS. LOADED PRIME. The words flashed on my display screen. "Computer, load secondary," I ordered to the machine.  
  
LOADED SECONDARY, ENHANCED FUSION EXPLOSIVES. Good, that should put a frown on the yeerk head commander. "Computer, targeting bio-equipment initialize," I said, bracing myself for the temporary biological enhancement. Like all humans, and some other sentient species, biological changes to the body are always nerve racking. No matter how subtle and familiar they might be.  
  
I reached forward to the bio-port which only was installed on Alpha's, Delta's and Theta's latest F/y's in which I was in the possesion of. I connected my arm to the seemingly crudely built device, and the semi-familiar sense of a Z-space bond jolted my body. A serum of anti-gravity and matter seemed to inject into my body, programmed to visually enhance my eyesight in an internal way. The jolt shot through my arm and made it's way up into the cerabelum of my body. It seemed to vibrate there for a second, then penetrated the iris of both my eyes. I was blinded by the retroviral microbes that inhabited the energy bond doing their recontructing work. Foutunatly for us, true retroviral warfare was impossible due to the abnormally temporary effects of the microbes before the body's own DNA starts to replace the far weaker bond microbes.  
  
Out of the blackness came the astonishing feeling of embodieing a greater being, yet, in another way so disturbing that I wanted to wet my pants. My eyes almost were 3 pairs in one, and essentially, they were. I had a total of 6 eyes spread out across my face, and the microbes were programed to allow my brain to control which ones I saw through. One pair was normalized, except for a slightly higher depth perception, another showed what I could never mistake to be infared, and the third was the most useful. The geniuses at the biological ward somehow made it possibly to create periodical synapes between my brain and an object (in this case a missile) to physically see through the "eyes" of the Nuke. They dubbed it OBVP, or Out of Body Visual Perception. This was useful for manually controlling the flight of the missile.  
  
Ignoring my brain that told be to continue the stealthy approach, my gut told me to go for it and I took the controls with the iron grip of my hands and swooped down into the field of Bug fighters. I kept telling myself that the surprise aspect would throw them off, but still, I accelerated as fast as my fission cores would go before the coolant ran out. My ECM jammer started to pick up tranmission from the bug fighters the instant I started my insane ramage downward.  
  
"Sub-visser, we have picked up a, no, wait two craft travelling full speed at our bug fighter squadrons. Must be resistence fighter because, HAH! Traveling on fission. What a joke. Awaiting orders," a commander said.   
  
I could almost imagine Enigma smiling to that remark. "Let's show him who is the joke, Splicer," he said,  
  
I cleared my throat and then sent a transmission to whatever frequency that was. "Fission, yes. A joke because yeerks have not become the masters of it. They cannot produce simple coolant to cool the reactors. They-"  
  
"ENOUGH! Fighters, engage enemy craft at will. Only one squadron, though. Shouldn't use up too much fuel."  
  
Hehe, I'd show them. I changed my vision to infared to see what type of engines they truely had in their fighters. Good. Basic proton-shift, nothing more that our "pathetic" photon-slicing cores. Back to visual to see 12 ships cruising straight towards us. Crap. Breaking away from the main group. This had ought to be tricky.  
  
"Splicer, I'm trusting that you have the targeting sickness (slang for the retroviral microbe injection) so you should target the splinter group here and make sure that one nuke will do the job of several. I will target the slighly more centralized group and hope that most of them are destroyed," Enigma said.   
  
"Roger that," I replied, seeing Engima's F/y break off to try and flank the bug fighters. Since I was traveling the slowest of us two, the bug fighters chose me as their chase target. Good for me. I would have an easier shot with the missile and my OBVP.  
  
However, even a Theta can be a rational thinker on the field of battle. I soon realized several very important concepts while I was juicing up my nukes.  
  
Never underestimate the speed of a proton-shift engine.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
A/N: If you didn't get the ending, the bud fighters are the ones that have the proton-shift weapons. Please review, the next installment will be out shortly, although it will be slightly shorter. (2 chapters) 


End file.
